Not mentioning the T word at all

greent

Happy Birthday, Hester! :beer:

CCP wrote: »

While hunting out a recipe for buttermilk scones I came across another recipe that I think will actually call for me to buy some more buttermilk - precisely how good do these sound? :drool: )

They sound gorgeous - think I'll try them out later in the week - haven't got preserved ginger, but I'll experiment with a little grated fresh and some maple/ golden syrup

shegar

Kittikins wrote: »

Happy Birthday Hester

Wow seem to be a lot of us with November birthdays......

scottishminnie

:bdaycake::bdaycake::bdaycake::bdaycake:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HESTER - Who's having a piece of cake then? Or will we just have cocktails instead:D

oops - didn't mean to shout!

CRANKY40

shegar wrote: »

Wow seem to be a lot of us with November birthdays......

Well it is 9 months after Valentines day......I have 2 nephews and a niece born in November, and my son's birthday is the same as one of his cousins, the 4th of November (son was actually due 21st of November)

SDG31000

:bdaycake:Many Belated Happy Returns Hester I hope you had a great day

Does anyone know where The Sandman lives? As I want to go and give him a good kicking for missing my house for over a week. I'm already at the "completely out of it/mildly hysterical" stage of insomnia, I dread to think how bad I'm going to get if I don't get some sleep soon. I did do some baking yesterday and made a big pear and apple cake, an iced lemon cake and pizza dough for dinner. DH came home to find me wandering around the house holding a knife and a chopping board asking DS1 and DS2 what I was going to do with them as I had forgotten. I must have looked bad as DS1 took over and sorted out the pizza toppings.
Today I'm off to Knit and Natter where hopefully one of the ladies can tell me how to knit wing shapes. I must remember to take a notebook with me.
Bye for now from a rather damp Leicester xxxx

paidinchickens

More mist and fog today then

The wash basket is like the magic porridge pot at the moment, I just don't know where it is all coming from. I have shouted stop basket stop but it won't obey. I am sure I heard the dryer say "mwah ha ha you will have to use me today" We are now naming the dryer Edna....Evil Edna :rotfl:

If Santa is listening I really really REALLY would love to have a wood burner or an AGA pretty pretty please I have been good all year. We have looked into installing one but with us living in a new build, lego land house the only way we could have one is to extend on the side of the house and would cost thousands and thousands. I am so envious of those who have one

Rant Warning

I suppose we are like everyone else at the moment and shaving pennies off here, there and everywhere we can only to have a huge bill come along and wipe the savings out and then some more on top.

A school trip letter was handed over a couple of days ago and they wanted the deposit of £50 paid by the end of the week :eek::eek: What planet are they on?? seriously, it's emotional blackmail as the kids are terrified they will not be allowed to go if it is not paid straight away :mad:

DSS asked his Mum if she would pay half (as my ex does for my DS) and this has broken out into full time war!!! apparently we are "loaded, selfish, horrid people who should never ask her for money as it is us they live with so we should pay. I don't know why the DSS even asked as he knows what will happen. Last year she promised DSS2 money for his birthday and every time he asked she knocked money off and then finally said he was not getting any money and would get what he was given and it was his fault for going on :eek:

The kids are all aware on how much we spend etc as we talk about the bills, cutting back, food budgets etc and we even get the monopoly money out to show them what is left every month. They know we go to Mr Ts local every night and come back with tomorrows meal for 20p. I am surprised they don't say "hello Mr and Mrs Yellow label" when we enter the building :rotfl:

We never call the "other parents" in this house but are always blamed for doing so, we generally do not have time to worry about them as we are too busy trying to feed and clothe everyone.

I suppose the credit crunch is affecting absent parents hard as well and when we are all told to cut back and list priorities the children are the first to go.

Being a Step Mother is really hard, I try to see both points of view and mediate where possible for a quiet life but in the end it is always the wicked witches fault (me)

Rant over

I am planning on having a lazy catch up TV day today as I am still under the weather. The only problem with on demand, iplayer etc is I don't know what is worth watching and spend ages watching the first five minutes of rubbish and then turning the damn thing off as a waste of time. What does every one else watch???

Well what a mixed bag of a post, I have been quiet for a couple of days though so obviously needed to let it all out :rotfl::rotfl:

Have a fab day

PIC x

Mrs_Chip

PIC - if you want 30 mins of quirkyness find 'Wales on Wheels' episode 1 on the iplayer - one of those odd progs that make you smile!

OH said the first series of 'The Killing' was good, but it is a moody study of a nordic female detective with subtitles - not my thing at all , but second series has now started.

GreyQueen

:) Good morning peeps.

Sadly, I am still without the Yellow Ball, as are so many of us today. Not sure if what is outside the window is a low overcast or high fog as I am in such a built-up area that I don't have sufficient field of vision to calculate how many meters of visibility there may be in central Provincial City this morn. I can see all the way across a small carpark with nooooo probs.

Hester belated happy birthday.:beer:

Well, have spent some time catching up on the chores and booking a dental check-up and talking to a lovely lady at my ISP's call centre (really nice woman) so although I am still unable to send email from my personal account until I have finished being "migrated" to a new server, which could be tomorrow, could be a coupla weeks, I feel fairly soothed. It's that lovely Welsh accent........... The main thing is that the emails come in, anything else is gravy.

Mind you, there have been a few times in this life when I've been tempted to revert to a pair of yoghurt pots and string........:p

Friend and neighbour SuperGran called me yestereve and had me in absolute STITCHES. Cannot possibly repeat what she said but my side of the conversation was shrieks of laughter punctuated with "OMG, you didn't! You DIDN'T!!" The joke is that if you looked a SG's life from the outside you'd think she was a dry old stick, maiden lady, very religious.......and you'd be soooo soooo wrong.;)

She'd been monstering our housing officer. He's a grown man in middle age, old enough to look after himself, but I don't think he has quite got the measure of SG yet. She's broken-in a string of them over the past decades. They start off bumptious and end up dropping into her flat once a week for tea........

OMG, I can't stop laughing at the mere memory of what she said....that woman should be on the telly!

Well, I still have my fly-tipped tyre outside, have stripped the bed and am washing the linens and the slow-cooked chili was very successful. That's another 2 cans of tomatoes off the premises.....eeek!

Don't know the cure for insomnia, unfortunately, but know how wretched it feels very well. When I can't sleep, apart from very occasional worrywarting, there's usually a tangible reason beyond my control to account for it.....the joys of high-density housing.

Of course, the upside is that I'm 5 minutes' walk from my job and thus have more time to play on MSE..........:rotfl:

Hope everyone has a good day, even under the cloud. If there are more than 3 consecutive days of sunlessness, one is officially authorised to break out the sloe gin, y'know. Hic!

CCP

It's emerged from the fog within the last couple of minutes - I nearly said something out loud at work before realising that the above statement wouldn't mean anything to my colleagues.

It's pretty cheering to see the ball, though, particularly as I've just had a text from my sister who's had a nightmare and convinced herself it was real and I was really badly hurt. She suffers from mental health problems and sometimes has trouble telling what's real and what's not: she's recently been signed off by the psychiatrist but that text tells me she's not completely better yet.

On a more amusing note, a colleague has just read out an advertising email he's received (I'm not sure who from) trying to promote a Christmas pizza - topped with roast turkey, gravy and roast potatoes. Thanks, but I think I'll pass on that one. _pale_

PIC - I'm not much of one for television but I've recently been watching the latest Hairy Bikers series on iplayer. It's a daytime series so it's pretty low budget, but it's as amusing as most HB series and with some nice sounding recipes (I'm intending to make the sage and onion rolls from one of the first programmes - they sound very yum indeed).

greent - (sorry for the late response) - I don't have any preserved ginger either, so I'm going to use crystallised ginger and golden syrup instead. We'll have to compare notes on how our respective variations turn out.

Right, back to work. Sigh.

katieowl_2

Morning peeps. No yellow ball as yet, but there might be enough blue appearing to make a sailor a pair of trousers.

Shopping with DD was exhausing, but reasonably fruitful. I've sorted DS pretty much, I need a jar for some sweeties, but DD says she has one I can have. I managed to sneak something 'on theme' for DD into my basket in TKMaxx while she wasn't looking. Haven't a clue for OH at the moment, but he's not fussy! Other DD is going to be a challenge. She's really quite severely lactose intolerant now, and can't even eat chocolate, I hope I can find some vegan ones in town!

Spoke to her last night again too on skype, the whole family chatted to her, she's depressed and tired of uni and wants to come home! :eek: She knows 'really' she has to stick it out, but it's very tiring dealing with her weekly wobbles (I'm sure all the 'other' stuff foodwise isn't helping, a bar of choc cheers one up enormously and she can't do that anymore!) I might see if I can find her something like coming home countdown calender and post it to her - 27 days we counted!

Picked up 'The take-away secrets' book for DD's BF too, she thought he'd like that, and he's getting a liquorice basket for Xmas. We have a fab sweetie shop in town that has jars and jars of different types.

Was fairly good whilst shopping, but did buy some Xmassy stuff. But mostly was in TKmaxx or Wilkinsons, so hardly pushing the boat out. I have ordered a nice hand painted hanging christmas heart thingy...I was about to buy one that said Happy Xmas in French, when he told me he was expecting some more stock in Welsh (Naddolig Llawen) as the first batch flew out of the shop before he'd even got them in the window, so I've reserved and paid for one, I have to go back before Xmas anyway to take DD's BF to the coach. They are hand painted in Bavaria...he ordered them specially from a trade fair.

I've got the bread machine on, I was going to make Xmas cakes today, one for us, and one that's been ordered from me, but I don't have tins the right size...I've managed to borrow a couple, which I need to collect, and I have everything I need but Orange zest! So might pop to Mr T again after all.

Kate